How do you number chair conformations?

1 Answer
Jun 1, 2018

Unambiguously…?

Explanation:

And so you got a chair conformation....three substituents AXIAL and three substituents EQUATORIAL on each FACE of the chair...
![chemlibre.texts.org](useruploads.socratic.org)

Now of course, if the chair is substituted by other functional groups, the normal rules of organic precedence apply...

Clearly, the ipso carbon, whatever the substituent will be C1...

![openwetware.com](useruploads.socratic.org)

For "cis"-1,4-Bu^tC_6H_10CH_3 here the carbon that is substituted by Bu^t is C1...and clearly C-Me is C4 on the given scheme....and we would anticipate, reasonably, that Bu^t would be disposed EQUATORIALLY....as indicated on the given diagram...

And if you cannot see this on paper, I urge you to make a model...